Over the last two years I've become a follower of several of the popular Podcast that emenate from the Bay Area.

As someone interested in the Mac Scene, I started listenging to the Your Mac Life show which was a conventional webcast available by download or a live Internet stream. A couple years ago Your Mac Life stopped allowing downloads of their, only giving the option of purchasing the show through Audible.com. Since i like to listen at my convenience and didn't want to pay for the show, I listened less and less. Your Mac Life show would also hype up their annual party at Macworld, but if you tried to go to the party you'd get a pitch to have your comapny buy in to sponsoring the event. So much for the YML community...

Then along came This Week in Tech, or better known as Twit. Hosted by Leo LaPorte and other alumni of TechTV, he started a weekly podcast taking his idea of a lively roundtable of people in the tech field to discuss a range of topics. From this show, I learned of Kevin Rose and his The Broken series and the then new, Diggnation show and Merlin Mann's 43Folders.com.

What helped catapult these shows to the forefront of the scene, was using RSS to 'Podcast' the content for free. This is the best format for me and a lot of other listeners as you can listen when you want on your iPod; riding to work, jogging or on your stereo. Another aspect that makes the show a success is the community that was started around the shows. Leo started taping the shows at various spots around SF and invited the listeners to participate. A few shows were done at the SF Apple store and a few were done at local cafes or beer joints.

The Diggnation shows have also taken on a life of their own. The Podcast that started with just co-hosts, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht sitting on a couch, drinking some beers with their laptops on their laps. They discuss the top stories from the reader selected top stories on digg.com. Their public recordings have been usually recorded at the Beach House brewpub in San Francisco. Beer + geeks = good times!

Diggnation recently had a big party for their listeners at Club Mezzanine in San Francisco. They generously gave away two drink tickets and a t-shirt! I even got to meet my organization/life-hack hero, Merlin Mann.

I'm posting some of the pics I've taken from the many public shows I went too i the last couple years.